BOOK where there is the most perfect freedom. First, I. the employments must be well known and

long established in the neighbourhood; fecondly, they must be in their ordinary, or what may be called their natural ftate; and, thirdly, they must be the fole or principal employments of those who occupy them.

Firft, this equality can take place only in thofe employments which are well known, and have been long established in the neighbourhood.

Where all other circumftances are equal, wages are generally higher in new than in old trades. When a projector attempts to establish a new manufacture, he muft at firft entice his workmen from other employments by higher wages than they can either earn in their own trades, or than the nature of his work would otherwife require, and a confiderable time must pafs away before he can venture to reduce them to the common level. Manufactures for which the demand arifes altogether from fashion and fancy, are continually changing, and feldom laft long enough to be confidered as old eftablished manufactures. Thofe, on the contrary, for which the demand arifes chiefly from use or neceffity, are lefs liable to change, and the fame form or fabric may continue in demand for whole centuries together. The wages of labour, therefore, are likely to be higher in manufactures of the former, than in those of the latter kind. Birmingham deals chiefly in manufactures of the former kind; Sheffield in thofe of the latter;

and

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and the wages of labour in those two different CHAP. places, are faid to be suitable to this difference in the nature of their manufactures.

The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or of any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation, from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. Thefe profits fometimes are very great, and fometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwife; but in general they bear no regular proportion to thofe of other old trades in the neighbourhood. If the project fucceeds, they are commonly at first very high. When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the competition reduces them to the level of other trades.

Secondly, This equality in the whole of the advantages and difadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, can take place only in the ordinary, or what may be called the natural state of thofe employments.

The demand for almost every different fpecies of labour is fometimes greater and fometimes lefs than ufual. In the one cafe the advantages of the employment rise above, in the other they fall below the common level. The demand for country labour is greater at hay-time and harvest, than during the greater part of the year; and wages rife with the demand. In time of war, when forty or fifty thousand failors are forced from the merchant service into that of the king, the demand for failors to merchant fhips neceffarily rifes with their scarcity, and their wages

VOL. II.

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upon

BOOK upon fuch occafions commonly rife from a guinea I. and feven-and-twenty fhillings, to forty fhillings and three pounds a month. In a decaying manufacture, on the contrary, many workmen, rather than quit their old trade, are contented with smaller wages than would otherwise be suitable to the nature of their employment.

The profits of flock vary with the price of the commodities in which it is employed. As the price of any commodity rifes above the ordinary or average rate, the profits of at least fome part of the flock that is employed in bringing it to market, rise above their proper level, and as it falls they fink below it. All commodities are more or less liable to variations of price, but fome are much more fo than others. In all commodities which are produced by human industry, the quantity of industry annually em ployed is neceffarily regulated by the annual demand, in fuch a manner that the average annual produce may, as nearly as poffible, be equal to the average annual confumption. In fome employments, it has already been obferved, the fame quantity of induftry will always produce the fame, or very nearly the fame quantity of commodities. In the linen or woollen manufactures, for example, the fame number of hands will annually work up very nearly the fame quantity of linen and woollen cloth. The varia tions in the market price of fuch commodities, therefore, can arife only from fome accidental variation in the demand. A public mourning raises the price of black cloth. But as the demand

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mand for moft forts of plain linen and woollen CHA P. cloth is pretty uniform, fo is likewise the price. But there are other employments in which the fame quantity of induftry will not always produce the fame quantity of commodities. The. fame quantity of industry, for example, will, in different years, produce very different quantities of corn, wine, hops, fugar, tobacco, &c. The price of fuch commodities, therefore, varies not only with the variations of demand, but with the much greater and more frequent variations of quantity, and is confequently extremely fluctuating. But the profit of fome of the dealers must neceffarily fluctuate with the price of the commodities. The operations of the fpeculative merchant are principally employed about fuch commodities. He endeavours to buy them up when he forefees that their price is likely to rife, and to fell them when it is likely to fall.

Thirdly, This equality in the whole of the ad vantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, can take place. only in fuch as are the fole or principal employments of those who occupy them.

When a perfon derives his fubftence from one employment, which does not occupy the greater part of his time; in the intervals of his leifure he is often willing to work at another for lefs wages than would otherwife fuit the nature of the employment..

There ftill fubfifts in many parts of Scotland a fet of people called Cotters or Cottagers, though they were more frequent fome years ago

BOOK than they are now. They are a fort of outI. fervants of the landlords and farmers. The

ufual reward which they receive from their masters is a houfe, a fmall garden for pot herbs, as much grafs as will feed a cow, and, perhaps, an acre or two of bad arable land. When their mafter has occafion for their labour, he gives them, befides, two pecks of oatmeal a week, worth about fixteen pénce sterling. During a great part of the year he has little or no occafion for their labour, and the cultivation of their own little poffeffion is not fufficient to occupy the time which is left at their own difpofal. When fuch occupiers were more numerous than they are at prefent, they are faid to have been willing to give their spare time for a very fmall recompence to any body, and to have wrought for less wages than other labourers. In ancient times they seem to have been common all over Europe. In countries ill cultivated and worfe inhabited, the greater part of landlords and farmers could not otherwife provide themselves with the extraordinary number of hands, which country labour requires at certain feafons. The daily or weekly recompence which fuch labourers occafionally received from their masters, was evidently not the whole price of their labour. Their fmall tenement made a confiderable part of it. This daily or weekly recompence, however, feems to have been confidered as the whole of it, by many writers who have collected the prices of labour and provifions in ancient times, and who have taken pleasure in representing both as wonderfully low.

The